Monday, November 26, 2012

"The emotions of people are far more similar than their intellect."- Stanley Kubrick

Kubrick understood that in the end, we are self-destructive to a degree. Now we have the ability to extend that self-destructive impulse beyond ourselves and immediate surroundings. This is why there has to be real concern that one day Iran or North Korea would launch a nuke. This is why there has to be real concern that one day Americans would ditch all the pillars that made it the greatest nation in the world, from belief in God and free markets, to try something that sounds "fair."

Such moves would be the culmination of a series of short-term emotional events and decisions. If everyone thinks he or she is a victim in this society, then we may all stand and exclaim "I'm Spartacus." The irony would be that once we began the inevitable last slide from greatness after enacting higher taxes on so many people that work, a carbon tax, a sugary snack tax, and several other taxes combined with productivity-coking regulations, we would be reduced to a human state that could only survive on government handouts.

It's really all about controlling behavior. The war on success helps fund runaway government spending but it also curbs individual ideas of success. It deters the average person from embracing profit-motivation and soon makes them embrace the notion of a world created from the writings of Voltaire. It would become a homogenized world of fit people tending to small terrace gardens in giant utopian cities, all obedient to government and a communal society. Of course, removing these freedoms isn't easy and has to be done with combination of finesse and muscle.

Case and point is the action in the UK this week that will see the announcement of new taxes to fight cheap booze. Prime Minister Cameron probably suggests 40p a unit tax that would make cheap supermarket lager £1 and bottle of wine £4. After all the warning labels, scare tactics, and common sense when it comes to over indulging drink, the UK government is looking for stronger approach. (I'm not sure if anyone there has heard of that great social experiment in America known as Prohibition.)

Cameron is going for the wallet to stop people from getting drunk. It's insane but illustrates how all these efforts from government to determine more perfect societies end up costing us economic and personal freedoms. Lower wage workers that simply want a brew after work are going to pay the highest cost, but the fact is, they are always the collateral damage. They will pay the biggest price for Obamacare, higher taxes on the so-called rich will take a greater toll on the decidedly not rich, and emotions will still burn.

Once the government goes broke the next step in our backward evolutionary slide would have us resembling cavemen featured in opening scenes of 2001 Space Odyssey.

This stuff doesn't happen overnight and thankfully every nation that tried a combination of socialism and communism failed fast enough to make adjustments that included free markets. Russia gave up the expense of holding together so much territory to focus on its core nation which is minting millionaires and billionaires and sports a 5% unemployment rate even with massive corruption. China's leaders know the end is near for their social experiment, too, as free markets have taken the country from a sea of bicycles to notions of going to the moon. Talk about an upside down world as China has become the largest car market in the world.

New measures are set to go into effect this week in Washington DC that aim to make 75% of all trips into the city by foot, bike, or public transportation. New parking meter rules will manipulate the ability for visitors to park and make more room for bicycle lanes. Did I say this is an upside down world? Even Marion Berry has expressed concerns about more bike lanes and less parking citing the exorbitant cost to using parking garages.

Yet even the former mayor hesitates to speak ill of more bike lanes.

Social engineering is running amok and it continues to be funded by people that have achieved a modicum of success while punishing those that dare to knock a few back - either Twinkies or beers.

Cooler Heads Ultimately Prevail

There is no straight line to a path of glory and maybe this is the fork in the road where America gets off track. We may need to fall off a cliff before being jarred out of this current emotional state. The road to a wonderful socialist utopia where there is neither smog nor fat people, and we work for the greater good so there are no wallets or individual wealth, can't be pulled off for long periods of time. In the end, there are other human emotions, such as a desire, to be the best, a desire to attain stuff, to taste a cream-filled snack loaded with calories and desires to rule our small universe called our life.

But as long as the economy falters and finger pointing replaces executive decisions, it is going to be a long time. But, I do think that in the end, cooler heads will prevail.

Emotions and the Stock Market

There are so many stocks that are cheap by any measure, but are depressed mostly for a variety of emotional reasons. Would-be investors are boycotting the market for fear of administration policies and now many people understand higher taxes will dissuade what used to be known as safe investments.>

Thursday, October 4, 2012

My Mother is going blind from Macular degeneration, so I can relate to this. She has been legally blind for close to a year, now. She gave up driving a couple of years ago and sold her car. I drive her to the store and help her with her bills.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Ah, if only I could finish writing a song that would be much easier to absorb than text, especially if the tune were so catchy as to....oh well, you get the idea.
My brother was a top honors Stanford Graduate. I remember a book he passed to my Dad, then on to me, Allan Bloom's, "The Closing Of The American Mind" in 1988.

It was the very beginning of what we have come to view as "political correctness" and, in effect, the polarity within our culture that has delivered us to this point where the majority of us are incapable of discussing, let alone dissolving our differences. What exists is an annoying self righteousness on "both sides" that would certainly make Jesus blush. The link is to Amazon, because I find the comments so all encompassing.
Mr Bloom's assertions were not political but philosophical in nature. Over the years since 1988, there has been a subtle selection process that has modified free debate in American Universities. I was so glad to hear about Bruce Bawer's new book, "The Victim's Revolution" that picks up where Bloom lets off.

It was refreshing that Mr. Bawer references Mr. Bloom.
< An eye-opening critique of the identity-based revolution that has transformed American campuses and its effect on politics and society today.
The 1960s and ’70s were a time of dramatic upheaval in American universities as a new generation of scholar-activists rejected traditional humanism in favor of a radical ideology that denied esthetic merit and objective truth. In The Victims’ Revolution, critic and scholar Bruce Bawer provides the first true history of this radical movement and a sweeping assessment of its intellectual and cultural fruits.
Once, Bawer argues, the purpose of higher education had been to introduce students to the legacy of Western civilization—“the best that has been thought and said.” The new generation of radical educators sought instead to unmask the West as the perpetrator of global injustice. Age-old values of goodness, truth, and beauty were disparaged as mere weapons in an ongoing struggle of the powerful against the powerless. Shifting the focus of the humanities to the purported victims of Western colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism, the new politicized approach to the humanities gave rise to a series of identity-based programs, including Women’s Studies, Black Studies and Chicano Studies. As a result, the serious and objective study of human civilization and culture was replaced by “theoretical” approaches emphasizing group identity, victimhood, and lockstep “progressive” politics.
What have the advocates of this new anti-Western ideology accomplished?
Twenty-five years ago, Allan Bloom warned against the corruption of the humanities in The Closing of the American Mind. Bawer’s book presents compelling evidence that Bloom and other conservative critics were right to be alarmed. The Victims’ Revolution describes how the new identity-based disciplines came into being, examines their major proponents and texts, and trenchantly critiques their underlying premises. Bawer concludes that the influence of these programs has impoverished our thought, confused our politics, and filled the minds of their impressionable students with politically correct mush. Bawer’s book is must-reading for all those concerned not only about the declining quality of American higher education, but also about the fate of our society at large.>

Monday, August 27, 2012

Joni answers questions about her childhood motivations here. To me her songs always offered great insight into life, while her musical lyricism was very inspirational. She went from a raw simplicity to very complex tonalities early on. Her tour with Pat Methany and Jaco Pastorius was a powerful wave on through to Amelia, probably because I saw her on stage several times during that period. I lived music then. Although the video was in 2008, it was prescient as she always has been a true philosopher.
I agree with her accessment of what has happened in our country as her prescient vision has been amplified in the last few years!
Here's some morePat Methany and more.

But the sparring of gamesmanship is not really as much of an issue in our “politics as usual” city this time around. We yearn for direct discussion of the issues rather than a whittling down by hairsplitting to the point of stagnation, the paralysis of analysis, because government accountability is essential. If only the current standard of sniping over character strengths seen only as targets could be blown out of the water by someone who is comfortable debating and directing conversation to elucidate obfuscation so endemic within our government decision making. If an idea can’t be described in a straightforward manner without the need of a lawyer, then let’s revisit it. Ryan has persisted in a vision which is refreshing, though he may not please everyone. He’s willing to put something on the table and let it be shot full of holes.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Remember these issues, back when debate was possible? I'm going to attempt to follow a thread with hopes of stimulating debate once again, rather than the state at which we find ourselves unwilling to discuss issues owing to a disrespect through arrogant vanity on both "sides".Have we been "dumbed down" to the point we're no longer able to discuss issues, especially on college campuses, without prideful posturing of one view or another?

Monday, June 4, 2012

Up is down, left is right, good is bad, and day is night. If you wander inside the Washington, D.C., beltway, you’ll enter a bizarro world where, at times, commonsense is replaced by a localized logic that is completely divorced from the reality.
The latest example of political gobbledygook comes courtesy of White House press secretary Jay Carney, who yesterday lapsed into rambling rhetoric when asked to explain how President Obama can defend the failed Solyndra solar boondoggle, yet attack private sector investments that sometimes fail but oftentimes succeed. Here’s his response:

Look…there, there, there is the…the…difference in that, your overall view of what…huh, your responsibilities are as president and what your view of the economic future is.
And the president believes as he’s made clear that a president’s responsibility is not just to, ah, those who win but those who, for example in a company where ah, there have been layoffs or a company that has gone bankrupt, that we have to ah make sure that those folks have the means to find other employment, that they have the ability to train for other kinds of work and that’s part of the overall responsibility a president has.

Got all that?

For the duration of his Administration, President Obama has dished out billions of dollars to politically favored companies in pursuit of job creation and a new “green” economy. It’s taxpayer-funded crony capitalism that has neither created new jobs nor produced the green-energy payout that the president was looking for. In fact, it’s a policy that has failed miserably, leading to bankruptcy after bankruptcy. Yet despite all the failures — and zero successes — the president and his Administration are defending the indefensible and standing by a policy that has squandered taxpayer money.

It’s gotten so bad that Congress is launching probes of federal green energy programs, including the Energy Department loan program, over concerns that lawmakers fast-tracked approval for politically connected companies. Heritage’s Lachlan Markay reports that according to a Republican aide on the Senate Budget Committee, “Politically favored, and often connected, renewable energy plans [receive] less rigorous review than traditional energy projects.” In one program, of the $20.5 billion in loans granted, $16.4 billion went to companies linked to donors who contributed to Obama and the Democratic Party.

At the same time the president is defending his taxpayer-funded failures, he’s attacking free enterprise, including in private equity and venture capitalism — enterprises in which investors voluntarily put up their own money to invest in new ideas and rescue existing companies. Sometimes those ventures fail, sometimes their inevitable failure is delayed but temporarily saves jobs amid restructuring, but many times they succeed — generating profits and producing new jobs.

When Carney was asked to justify the president’s defense of one, but criticism of the other, he just couldn’t do it. That’s no surprise, in that the two positions are logically inconsistent.
This episode calls to mind a quote from George Orwell, a frequent and pointed critic of modern political discourse:

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible… Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness… the great enemy of clear language is insincerity. Where there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms …

Maybe Jay Carney’s confused speech is the result of the unbearable heat and humidity that has descended on Washington all too early this year. Or maybe it’s a bad case of Potomac fever. But no matter the cause, the results are the same. In Washington, the Obama Administration is hard at work defending the crony capitalist machine while lambasting the free market system — and it shows no signs of letting up.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Even with CNN he's straightforward and clear thinking. After all, we all agree that our leaders in Washington are to whatever degree appeals to you, out of touch and bent on saving their perks. Patience is admirable under the circumstances. It would be preferable if those who aren't really engaged beyond political ideology would inform themselves and speak from the standpoint of solutions rather than mere rabble rousing.

Monday, May 7, 2012

There's so much rational confidence among educated Americans who support an idealized form of socialism that they think is possible in this country. Paradoxically, the very existence of this confidence stems from the very freedom that many seem to denounce in favor of their utopian vision. Youthful confidence has been the source of the socialist experiment for centuries, though creeping corruption and human resentments about relative duties has always resulted in totalitarian dictatorships. After all, how do thousands of ideas get "on the same page"? The Green movement gives the apparency of such unity, but they exist within a free society, so it's really just academic. Take away those structures of freedom and then let's see the confidence level. Westerns were a main staple of TV as American industry grew. The raw immediacy of core social structures was flimsy, as the evil monopolist would coerce the weak. Hollywood's values are strikingly similar today but the bad guy is the greedy company executive.
"Funny how countless people flee socialist "paradises" all the time to escape to capitalist America and warn us of the dangers of following down that path while you never see any lefties here pack their﻿ bags for one of these places, even after threatening to do so every time a Republican wins the presidential election" (Ironhawk86)
There were attempts to disrupt the 1%er, "Peter Schiff". Many have fixed opinions and were looking for supporters, while some of the younger were willing to absorb and learn from their experience of the evening in NY city at the Occupy Wallstreet gathering. To conclude here, I've gone back to the former soviet clarifying intent.

Friday, April 27, 2012

"There's something wrong in this country." In the words of Colonel Allen West, soldiers have been imprisoned for violations of poorly defined orders that are the result of court decisions driven by the likes of the ACLU, forcing political correctness onto the battlefield. It's a pathetic waste of human capital that those who choose to defend American values be shackled by leaders unwilling to defend their men. Those who join a volunteer army deserve to be protected from academic discussions made in a court removed from the fluid challenges faced by troops. In a complex and multifaceted society such as ours, responsible leaders buffer their people from the expectations of the inexperienced.
Colonel Allen West gave a speech to a number of parents, friends and supporters of those held in Leavenworth Prison.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Rubio clarifies a nuanced approach to U. S. Foreign Policy. This is the most logical, nuanced and lucid representation I've heard out of Washington. For once a presentation hasn't been dumbed﻿ down to the lowest common denominator or shallow talking points. This speech is spoken by a leader. This is a person who respects his position and wishes to influence Americans to strive to unify towards a common vision. Nice change.
I listened to this twice because I'm distrustful enough to suspect that honest nuanced logic out of Washington is not possible. Having lived overseas for 10 years, it's clear that the World functions best when the USA leads.

Friday, April 20, 2012

I have a peripheral interest in computer technology, even though speed on my home machine isn’t particularly important. My stock service recommended a flash hard drive company back in July of last year (OCZ). It has been a disappointing investment because it has been used as a financial pump of sorts for those savvy investors who “short” the market, i.e. make money when the price goes down. OCZ threatened a lawsuit with the SEC to make a point about it. So I’ve been watching from the sidelines waiting for that big break out I would hope to happen with such cutting edge technology. As I’ve tried to keep updated on their position in the competition to survive the risk reward whims of the market, I’ve been drawn in to try to understand the concepts.

There have been several iterations to the drives with technical and stability improvements. There has been some price lowering. In the general scheme of things, the esoteric power users suffer through the R&D with glitches here and there from speed differences adapting to existing buses on motherboards. When those issues are resolved, the engineers move on to the next challenge and the stable drives hit full production for the rest of us. But the cycle time from competition makes it difficult for the companies to cover their investment, especially when they’re squeezed with greater regulations by those who take their brilliance for granted.
The drives have evolved as hybrids where there have been various ratios of hard drive for slower needs and flash memory buffering some of the RAM and CPU cache memories. New bottlenecks appear when speed eliminates the last bottleneck, all driven by competition and brilliant people intent on solving problems. Information transfer buses got wider and wider upping the amount of information that can transfer at ever increasing clock speeds. It all becomes so mind boggling! In a new wave, smartphones and cloud computing have made servers a focus to relieve bandwidth bottlenecks. Consequently there appear to be designers attempting to move past the bottleneck of operating system software, to shuffle around the system architecture. Operating systems, like Windows act like relatively archaic gate keepers.
So it looks like OCZ may become obsolete before the market settles. C’est la vie!

Thursday, April 19, 2012

A three year old was required to obtain a social security number because of health problems requiring social services assistance. When the parents were told their son made too much money to qualify for help they were on their own to unravel their mysterious problem. Turned out that an illegal alien had made up a number that later was assigned to their son six years prior to their son's birth! Social Services was unwilling to help them figure out what was going on!!!!

The moral dishonesty concerning what our leadership tells the American people is galling. Or else they live in a bubble and really believe what they say??

Obama and Hobbes

The President is urging us not to believe in capitalism, and instead to work as a socialist collective, not unlike English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. This has been tried before and has detrimental flaws.

The World is On Fire

I'm flipping the channel last night and see Bill Maher with the most bogus chart ever. It showed fourth quarter GDP for America and a few other nations. America was 3.0% and all the others were much lower, some were negative. Bull!!!

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

You have, in my view, the quintessential personalities and viewpoints represented on your show this poor battered country needs right now. You obviously have admiration for each other despite the differing views. Bob is a bit more human than the more pedantic Alan Colmes as a representative of their unbelievable viewpoint. I went through the 60s and I wasn't so warped. I started College in 1968, saw Hendrix and Traffic, experimented full bore like most everyone and one of my friends even burned the Bank Of America in Santa Barbara then went on to help McGovern. But Bob; you leave those ridiculous ideas in your youth! I mean, how can an intelligent person think like that???!!! Intelligence in wit only, methinks?

The reason for this email is the outrageous societal stretches done by Greg Gutfeld. It dawned on me that he may well be the Voltaire of our times! Having him sit next to the sweet and at times, saucy Dana Perino has changed her forever. There's no returning to her former self now that she's allowed herself to "grok" the meanderings of Gutfeld who honed his outrageousness in the quick witted "Redeye", but then, I'm from the hinterlands. What do I know?

I love the latitude that Kimberly Guilfoyle demonstrates when she's on your show rather than the relative straight jacket necessary for being "Fair and Balanced" which no one is in real life. In all reality, it was "The Factor" that initially opened the window to Foxnews and the Bolder, Fresher take on things. I enjoy Kimberly rockin' out during segways to commercials.

Eric Bolling and, at times, Andrea Tantaros round things out with their extensive business knowledge. Being a trader myself I love the insights gleaned from them. Also, being in Santa Barbara, I've been listening to The Dennis Miller Show since he started introducing us to such unforgettables as Andrew Breitbart, God rest his soul. I think history will remember him as a seriously pivotal factor at this crucial time.

I know it's popular among my readers to believe that it's possible to "get back at greedy corporations". If you drive a car (who doesn't?) you will pay for the lawsuits waged against Oil companies, ACLU lawyers as well as the higher taxes the Government is only too willing to take in the form of a percentage of a higher cost...ie more taxes. Higher costs in gas benefit the government, therefore they have no incentive to lower costs whose only product, by the way, is regulating. Advocates frame this increase as getting back at big business. No one seems to think of the government as greedy. It's all a matter of perception, and unfortunately, a very successful sales job done on our youth. This message never gets out because of that marketing I was referring to and carries little weight, because it's unpopular. Stop driving completely and sell your car if you want to save the planet. Get real! Watch the video, no matter what you think of my delusions.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Thomas Sowell, an economist and senior Fellow at Stanford's Think Tank, The Hoover Institute is one of the most rational individuals on the west (left) coast. I loved the way he spoke from experience in 1990 about the choicez being made concerning the hiring at University campuses. Little did he know that his observations then have been the template for Universities for the last 20 years. Thomas Sowell has been telling it like it is for decades.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Armchair kibitzing is a little too easy these days. It's no mystery the middle class in the USA is being squeezed from both ends. Adam Carolla has found a way to make light of the situation by bringing his adroit humor to a bleak scene by finding similarities between those who are born with a silver spoon in their mouths and those who find leftover plastic spoons in their pockets in his book, "Rich Man Poor Man".
Let's face it. The media outlets are in the business to inform us and though they are also squeezed, there is somewhat of a cushion from the rawness of a downward spiral, since they've had the wits to create their careers and the wits to dance a little more effectively than the rest of us. They seem so poised; wish I could be that comfortable, knowing this morning that a political decision about a certain Canadian pipeline to refineries down south has taken precedence over the good of the country by someone in over his head, or merely ideological. The race is on. Will we have a future? Sallie Krawcheck, former Head of Global Wealth Management at Bank of America and Molly Ashby founder and CEO of Solera Capital have been in the hot seat through the volatile anti-business period that feels, still, like a tightening noose. This interview is exemplary of what it takes to take on the challenges of micro and macro economics. This interview gives us a window into a set of challenges that help us to get a glimpse of the large picture. Sallie Krawcheck and Molly Ashby are leaders as is evident in the following interview. The interview helps to permanently broaden a context of understanding.

It was so refreshing to hear Sallie clarifying 'diversity' to pertain to diversity of viewpoint rather than skin color. During the interview Sallie knew she had to clarify. 'Diversity' is another word hijacked by political correctness that tends to warp our language and require clarification. Our language is mired in catch phrases.
But make no mistake in analyzing the course of our country. We are in trouble because our current President not only can't juggle enough to stay ahead of things, but pays more homage to Saul Alinski than to you or me.
If Obama's heart were in the right place, he could learn something studying the pace of these womens' challenges, but his vanity allows him to run off and play golf when the country's plateau of permanence is tipping wildly, much like the floor of the recent cruise ship that ran aground off the coast of Italy. Come to think of it, vanity is at the heart of "entitlement". Certainly the vain don't think they have anything to learn, but are entitled to whatever anyone else has. Some children just don't grow up, or lack the perspective to value true leadership.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

The new documentary about Ayn Rand's book; "Atlas Shrugged" may be enough to wake the sleeping masses as to question the destination of the path on which our Government has embarked. Simply by word of mouth, sales of the book written in 1957 have steadily doubled since 2008.
The documentary predictably will fight an uphill battle to attract viewers as the formerly free media of our great country has become a defacto tool of those who would choose to obfiscate rather than enlighten those with truly open minds who seek freedom in the image of our founders. Spread the word because it is such a pity that mere information and exposure to creative ideas would be channeled, derailed and suppressed much as it was in Ayn Rand's original homeland, Russia. If you've read her book, you know how vital it is to try to inform others so we may turn the tide if, in fact, history is to repeat itself. I sadly regret that the good intentions of my generation attempting open dialogue and healthy, well meaning comraderie may, in fact, repeat errors of the past rather than achieve an utopian existence. After all, I experimented with Geodesic domes, communes in Oregon, John C. Lilly's research with Dolphins,"Be Here Now", Windham Hill, "Other Homes and Garbage" from the Stanford Press,"Canyon",etc etc hoping that "we all would do the right thing and not hurt others", but there are always a few bad apples that mess everything up, so we must create our existence in a much more conventional (and adult) way. Our current leadership is advocating Utopia while secretly operating like Chicago thugs!
The master of eloquence during the late 50s, William F. Buckley discusses his work with Ayn on the Tony Rose Show.
I'm not sure Ron Paul would steer the country to our liking as our President, though he's far preferable to our current Pres. In the following video, Ron has asked Alan Greenspan, former head of the Fed, to sign Ron's original copy of "Atlas Shrugged". Alan Greenspan was said to have known and been in alignment with Ayn Rand's philosophy in the 60s. In the video Ron is discussing the event of the signing asked Greenspan if he felt the need to write in a disclaimer with his signature.
So, who is John Galt?

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About Me

A plethora of details over many years has culminated in a passion for photography. I've run GBVTours.com as a Google Business View photographer for the past 5 years.
"There are things known and there are things unknown and in between are the doors..." -Jim Morrison
“It’s not because things are difficult that we do not dare.
It’s because we do not dare that things are difficult.” Seneca
The cross I bear as a Gemini; intent on resolution of polarities of thought.